The University of Stellenbosch will be hosting the bi-annual conference of the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) in Stellenbosch from 1-4 September 2010. The Theme for the Conference is Democracy in the First Decade of the 21st Century

Much has been said in the media and private conversations on the latest revelations of the South African president’s paternity of a child ‘out of wedlock’. Pumla Gqola counters some of the anti-feminist arguments put forward by defenders of Jacob Zuma’s choices.

Azad Essa crawls the bars of Durban trying to find punters interested in watching President Jacob Zuma’s ‘State of the Nation Address’ live on television. He finds that most people are more interested in the football.

No human being is going to be perfect when it comes to always aligning their personal principles with their public words and actions, writes Dale T. McKinley, but we should ‘expect those who are in positions of political and societal leadership to be what they claim to be – leaders’.

Younger teachers in South Africa are taking the lead in talking to students about HIV but are not practicing what they preach, according to new research.

The cause of a measles outbreak sweeping South Africa has not as yet been determined, but initial suspicions point to religious objections and unfounded fears that immunizations against the disease increase the risk of autism in children.

While South Africa remains one of the countries with highest HIV prevalence rates, gay rights organizations are doing their bit to curb the spread of the syndrome and to ensure that people know their statuses.

Although South Africa has almost a million HIV positive people on treatment, actuaries tell us that over 300,000 citizens are still being infected with the virus every year. This prompted health economist Professor Alan Whiteside to remark recently that “HIV treatment without prevention is like mopping the floor while the tap is running”.

The Zuma administration has clearly taken a far harder line on crime, in accord with its populist approach. Central to this is the direct threat to 'get' criminals. Invoking this 'shoot to kill' philosophy has already impacted tragically on innocent lives, writes Glenn Ashton.

Just over a month ago the legendary Dennis Brutus passed away. He became a legend for so many across South Africa and indeed the whole world not simply because of his exquisitely crafted poetry of passion and his never-ending activist commitment to justice and equality for all but precisely because he lived a life of principled consistency. The content of his public legend was umbilically linked to the character of his personal example. Simply put, Dennis practiced what he preached, writhes Dale McKinley.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) adds its voice to the many in wishing its Honorary President and former President of the Republic Nelson Mandela well on the 20th anniversary of his release. Nelson Mandela whom the NUM conferred an Honorary life Presidency long before his release in 1990 is a symbol of hope to many hopeless and impoverished people across the globe and continues to inspire hope amongst mineworkers.

Foreign nationals are being attacked with "impunity" in South Africa, a leading human rights organization charged as the latest service delivery protests turned violent and several hundred residents turned their anger on Ethiopian refugees living in Siyathemba township, about 80km east of Johannesburg.

Venue - Alliance Francaise, 17 Lower Park Drive/Kerry Road, Zoo Lake, Parkview
Time - 2-5pm
Date - 20 March 2010
Guest Artist - Thobile Magagula for Swaziland
The WINNER will TRAVEL to the House of Hunger Poetry Slam, Zimbabwe!
For more info call Linda: 073 081 5194

If nothing else, President Jacob Zuma’s belated apology about his out-of-wedlock child with Sonono Khoza following unprecedented outrage at the way he has demeaned the highest office in the land has shown the power of public opinion in a democracy. We have also established once and for all that the personal is political and that leaders must practice what they preach where HIV and AIDS is concerned.

Twenty kids, five weddings (and more to come?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on, marital and extra-marital. Some say it is a private matter, but like it or not, just as with any celebrity, Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private.

A new ‘bling’ culture, pervasive among South Africa’s ruling political, business and public administration elite, which sees lavish lifestyles as the standard for achievement, is encouraging people to use shortcuts to get rich quickly rather than working or studying hard, writes William Gumede.

Marion Grammer acknowledges the significant contribution made to the liberation struggle by the teachers, writers and intellectuals behind the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), the first organisation in South Africa to adopt the principle of non-racialism, which debunked the myths about African ‘inferiority’ and administered ‘an antidote to the poisonous indoctrination of apartheid. It was ‘the politics of anti-imperialism and non-racialism learned from the Unity Movement’, says Grammer, that ‘provided the impetus that sent young people marching and protesting and fighting for democracy in the 1970s and 80s’.

In this article, Richard Lapper asserts that South African companies are making up for lost time in their own continent. Links with other emerging markets - themselves interested in Africa's resources and high-growth consumer markets - are growing quickly. The economic momentum is also giving substance to a foreign policy that since the end of apartheid has favoured links with Asia, Latin America and Africa in an effort to reduce a historical dependence on Europe and the US.

South Africans are inclined to moan about so much…the fact that things don’t seem to function, the corruption, the crude avarice of the new elite, the poor performance of Bafana Bafana, the crime. Add to this Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma's polygamy and the scandal of the mismanagement of our parastatals and you have a picture that evokes images of imminent collapse for the chattering classes.

This is a call for the forthcoming South African Sociological Association (SASA) Congress, hosted by the University of Fort Hare, 13-16 June, in East London. Papers should be related to the theme is “Sport, Leisure, and Development in the 21st century: Opportunities and Challenges”; however, if you have a paper idea that doesn’t exactly fit, please go ahead and submit it to me or one of the other working group conveners. If your abstract is accepted we WILL find a space for it.